Egyptian security forces used tear gas and live ammunition to storm a mosque
in Cairo where up to 1,000 Islamist protesters had barricaded themselves in,
as the military’s ruthless crackdown intensified.

Dramatic footage from inside al-Fatah Mosque in Ramses Square showed people fighting for breath as troops fired in canisters of tear gas, filling a hall of worship with clouds of white smoke.

Outside, troops who had besieged the mosque exchanged fire with gunmen who were using its minaret as a sniper point.

The siege was one of numerous flashpoints across the country on Saturday as Egypt’s generals continued to defy international condemnation of their actions. Hundreds of lives have been lost during one of the bloodiest weeks in the country’s recent history.

The siege began when large numbers of Muslim Brotherhood supporters took refuge overnight in the al-Fatah mosque in Ramses Square, already the scene of at least 35 deaths on Friday. The mosque’s precincts had been turned into a makeshift mortuary, with dozens of blood-soaked corpses bearing bullet wounds to the head and chest.

A woman climbs from behind a barricade inside the al-Fatah Mosque (Reuters)

By daybreak, troops had sealed off the roads around mosque with tanks and barbed wire. For a few hours, efforts were made to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the stand off.

But the protesters, who had barricaded themselves in with piles of furniture, refused to leave, fearing not just arrest but beatings by anti-Brotherhood mobs who had gathered outside.

Armed with sticks and metal rods, the thugs, who some suspected of being drafted in by the government, were attacking men with beards, women in Islamic headscarves, and anyone else suspected of being a Muslim Brotherhood supporter, as well as foreign journalists.

In an attempt to avoid another round of serious bloodshed, the army sent in soldiers to negotiate with the protesters - but with little success.

Ahmed Emara, whose father Saad Emara was inside the mosque negotiating for an evacuation, gave The Sunday Telegraph an account of what had gone on inside.

“Army officers initially told my father that the people besieged in the mosque would be taken for investigation by the military prosecution,” he said.

When that offer was rejected, he claimed the army had promised that if the occupiers agreed to leave peacefully, they would be given safe passage from the mosque and then released.

“The evacuation had started in groups of five, then they heard shooting sounds,” Ahmed said.

A gunman stationed in the mosque’s minaret had opened fire at the army and into the hostile crowds gathered outside.

The minaret of al-Fatah Mosque (Reuters)

“They said that one of the protesters ascended the minaret and shot on them,” Ahmed said. “But the gates to the minaret was controlled by the army, and there was no way that the protesters could go up.”

Among those who had been trapped inside the mosque were four Irish children of Hussein Halawa, the imam of Dublin’s biggest mosque.

Omaima Halawa, 21, who was with her two sisters Somaia, 27, and Fatima, 23, as well as their younger brother Ibrihim, 17, sought refuge in the mosque after Friday’s protests and spoke to the Irish national broadcaster RTE from inside.

“We are surrounded in the mosque both inside and outside,” she said. “The security forces broke in and threw tear gas at us.”

From the family home at Firhouse in the south of the city, another sister Nasaybi said they were enduring a terrible ordeal.

She said: “We are really worried. We do not know how to help them. We are just trying to support them by calling and giving them some hope that they will get home safely.”

Running out of patience, the army finally made the decision to storm the mosque, sending in the tear gas canisters and dragging away the remaining Muslim Brotherhood supporters. Security officials claimed ending the standoff had been essential after they received information suggesting that the group planned to turn it into a new sit-in protest camp.

Egyptian riot policemen get in the community services hall of the al-Fatah Mosque (AFP)

Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi, who leads the military-backed government, later told journalists that authorities had no choice but to use force in the wake of recent violence.

“I feel sorry for valuable blood shed,” el-Beblawi said. However, he cautioned that there will be no “reconciliation with those whose hands are stained with blood or those who hold weapons against the country’s institutions.”

The street confrontations highlight the bitter social divides that the recent political turmoil in Egypt has thrown up.

Despite the recent bloodshed, which their own ranks have born the brunt of, Muslim Brotherhood protesters have vowed to carry on protesting until the government reinstates the presidency of Mohammed Morsi, who was removed from office in a military coup on July 3rd.

But while Mr Morsi was democratically elected, the coup had popular backing from non-Islamist Egyptians, who say the Brotherhood planned to turn the country into a theocracy.

The viciousness of the recent crackdown against Brotherhood protests over Mr Morsi’s ousting, however, now risks robbing the new government of any good will it mave had in the West, where governments had been prepared to turn a diplomatic blind eye to Mr Morsi’s ouster if it led to longer-term stability in Egypt.

Egypt’s prime minister, Hazem el-Beblawi, proposed disbanding the Brotherhood as a political party altogether, a move that would take it back to the outlaw status it had during the dictatorship of President Hosni Mubarak. Many fear that could lead to it reverting to the kind of armed resistance that it gave up decades ago, backed by harder-line Islamic factions.

Egyptians mourn over the bodies of their relatives in the al-Fatah Mosque (AP)

The crackdown on the Islamists continued across Egypt yesterday, with the interior ministry saying that more than 1,000 Brotherhood supporters had been arrested in the past week, including 558 in Cairo alone. Among those taken into custody was Mohammed al-Zawahri, the leader of the ultraconservative Islamist group who is also the brother of Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al-Qaeda.

The Brotherhood also announced that Mohammed Badie, the son of the movement’s senior spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie, was among those killed on Friday.

Meanwhile, during Brotherhood-led protests in the city of Ismailia, 100 miles outside Cairo, dramatic video footage emerged of a man being shot as he attempted a Tiananmen Square style protest in front of a security cordon. Having walked towards a line of tanks with his hands raised in the air, he then crumpled the ground after being shot.

Elsewhere in Egypt, at least 10 people were killed by security forces and dozens injured in the canal city of Suez when they gathered to protest in defiance of the curfew.

Badr’s staunch defence of the army, despite the deaths of almost 800 people in the past three days, shows how many Egyptians who consider themselves liberals are sitting back and watching what human rights campaigners say is one setback for democracy and the rule of law after another.

“What Egypt is passing through now is the price, a high price, of getting rid of the Brotherhood’s fascist group before it takes over everything and ousts us all,” Mr Badr, 28, told Reuters.

Security officials have advised Mr Badr to reside at a secret location for his safety, but last week he appeared on state television urging Egyptians to take to the streets and form “popular committees” to protect citizens from the Brotherhood. Already there are complains that such groups have turned into anti-Brotherhood vigilante movements.